Premise:The summer after her freshman year, something wonderful happens to Frankie Landau-Banks. She finally grows into her awkward face and body and becomes “pretty”. Pretty enough that when she returns to prestigious boarding school Alabaster Prep for her sophomore year, she catches the attention of her crush, senior hotty and BMOC Matthew. Before she knows it, she’s Matthew’s girlfriend, complete with the honor of hanging out with Matthew’s cool buddies, especially the charming and enigmatic Alpha.

However, soon Frankie begins to feel as though she is nothing more than arm candy, acceptable as Matthew’s quiet, unassuming girlfriend content to sit on the sidelines but not worthy of inclusion in his secret all-male society, the Royal Order of the Basset Hounds. Being smart and self-aware, Frankie begins to chaffe at the unfairness of this Boys Club mentality that keeps women at arms length. She engineers her way into the society through a back door and, before long, becomes its powerful undercover leader. But when her secrets begin to come out, Frankie has to face the reality that even though she’s proven herself to be more than worthy of inclusion and respect, some out-of-date traditions cannot be broken without severe consequences.

Potential Points of Concern:

Frankie masterminds several harmless school pranks.

When Frankie’s role as the undercover leader of the Royal Order of the Basset Hounds is discovered, she loses all of her friends, including Matthew.

Frankie faces a double standard in the treatment and acceptance of behaviour from a boy versus a girl.

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But I’m Too Busy to Read Everything

Yesterday at the bookstore, my middle-school-aged daughter chose a book meant to be read by a high-school-aged person. She's mature enough to handle the advanced reading level. But she's not mature enough to handle the advanced sex, language, and social issues that the book might contain. I told her I would need to preview the book before I'd allow her to read it.

And I wished for a website that would lead me in the right direction. Some place that might offer a parent's opinion on the age appropriateness of Young Adult titles.

There may be many sites out there that offer such information. In which case, one more opinion can't hurt, right? But if there aren't easily found book review sites like this one, I hope it helps other parents who are too busy to read everything but don't feel comfortable with letting their child read something without at least an idea of what might be between the front and back covers.

This site is not a review site. My opinion about the quality of the story or writing will not be shared here. Rather, this site attempts to summarize issues of concern for parents and indicate if and how the book in question handles them. Based on my own experience, I offer a suggested age of appropriateness at the end of each entry, however this is my opinion alone and has no support from the writers or publishers of the titles reviewed.

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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact rfuller42@yahoo.com.

This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. I write for my own purposes. As the owner, I will never receive compensation in any way from this blog.

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